Like A Balm
by sctwilightvampwolfgal
Summary: Rin has to count before swimming competitions and before he dives into any pool; it calms his mind and steadies his attention. *Inspired by Day Six of MerMay: Gold, on UniqueLeeLikesArt's Calendar.*


There was something about the push and pull of adrenaline, a sort of surge of energy, that sometimes could leave one coming home with gold. He shifts, if only to glance at the watch on his wrist, knowing that gold is not won through being extraordinary, but rather through the greatness of normalcy. Anything else is cheating anyways.

He counts to ten, feeling that impatience swirl in his belly, and half-tempted to just dive into the pool, feeling the water surging cold around him on all sides like tight walls ready to collapse, and know that he's safe, even if legs never seem to guarrantee that.

Ten seems too short, as he fights the urge to just meld with the water, become one with it in a way that not even Haru could master or attain. Water is not just a force to be churned through, softened under the harsh movements that arms and legs can attain. He knows that, even if he won't tell Haru that he understands in a way deeper than the dark haired boy ever could.

Rin counts the seconds and knows that's why his sister never swims. She has not learned how to count the seconds and how to mold arms and legs into sea based weapons. Gou swims in a way that he knows others can't imagine. She dutifully avoids the water like a curse, until they are visiting the side of their family that their mother never talks about, the side that they are never quite sure where they fit into the family tree. They just do.

Each second seems nowhere near calming enough, and he pushes them through his mind like blades of grass through a lawnmower, and he knows that if he can just calm down and mirror each breath, one to the other, then he won't have to worry about just the effect of water meeting skin and the overwhelming impulses that relieve some of the pain of fighting off if he moved into them. Each ripple of water is a temptation with a voice that only he can hear. It's too much to fight off somedays, but he will fight it off when others could see.

Rin folds into the stretches, easing his body into the sharpness that it needs to avoid the whisper softness that letting go feels like. It's mind over matter or maybe just the case of physical strength and strain that can mold a body into something pliable and easily overcome.

Ten becomes twenty, becomes thirty, and he knows he's good when he forgets that it's water that will be his tool and when he feels that it is something else that he is about to dive into. Rin knows the strain, and he wonders if his sister understands it half as well, when she's too afraid to run that risk. He looks over at her, and he imagines that when she looks at the guys like she is now, with sparkles in her eyes, that she's also pausing long enough to picture what they'd be like, if she gave them that chance into her heart.

Rin knows she won't, just as easily as he knows to count before he swims. He knows that Gou considers it too much of a strain to really pursue any such relationship, and that she'll look, because she likes to, and she knows that she won't say, 'yes.' if someone asked her too.

He knows that the water feels like a balm to her, which he knows she won't show. She thrills at the saltwater that touches her skin, but only when it's dark, and she slips out of view gracefully. Rin knows that that's why they look as they do, red hair, red eyes, and somehow graceful when others stumble.  
He begins to count again, out of habit, and out of the fact that the time hasn't started to dive in, to kick hard, to mold with the water in the fraility of legs and arms. He doesn't count wins in this instant, and he'll only count them as successes later anyway. Rin gets hung up on them, because they matter, but not in a prideful, conceited way, but because each one is a victory of his that he has to count off for and guard.

When finally he's able to dive in, he does, pushing and straining and guarding. He doesn't breath past the steady rhythm that his limbs fall into, and he doesn't doubt that others might wonder about him, why he appears as if a shark.

* * *

"Rin, you did it." Gou is near silent as if paranoid that if others heard, they would just consider her supporting another team's swimmer.

"I did." He smiles, and it flows naturally, as sharp as his teeth look and as sharklike as he appears.

"Dad would be proud." She whispers it, and he knows that it's true. Their father would be very proud, and he just hugs his sister in the quick span of a half-second that they both know won't be noticed past the din of the noise.

"Do you want to go for a swim tonight? Not to any particular place?" Rin asks, because he knows that the water is as much his balm as his sister's.

"Sure." She smiles as she waves at him and returns to her team, all congratulatory to Haru and the others, and Rin pauses to consider if she ever longs for that kind of connection that her team and her brother live and thrive off of. Gou doesn't even sure it, if she wanted to.

* * *

The ocean is warm in the mist of night, and Rin walks along the shoreline as his sister catches up, shifting in her red swimsuit that she rarely wears outside of swim meets. She smiles in the darkness, and Rin knows that she's happy as she steps up to the water, not quite glancing at him, even as she rushes into it, almost afraid of attempting to swim with legs that always seem too clumsy.

Rin follows into the darkness and just as the waves seem to almost overtake him, he shifts, letting the water glide over ruby red scales as he moves with ease through the ocean. His sister isn't far off, and he knows that her tail is just as red. It's relaxing in how it almost feels cool on scales as they shift and dive deep, feeling water gingerly push off their gills, and breathing oxygen like sweet relief.

It's enough of an escape that they don't have to say anything.


End file.
